Pages

Saturday, March 23, 2013

Why I Homeschool: Against Proselytizing

Let me say it again: I am not trying to convert you. You
will not find me on any street corner, passing out homeschooling tracts. If you
come to my house, you can drink the Kool-Aid, or more likely, the café latte,
without worry. I am not going to drug you. We can talk, be friends, and I won’t
launch any campaigns. I won’t send you any Charlotte Mason or classical
education pamphlets.

Or, worse: I won’t try to make you feel guilty.

(Oh, because I see it in every face, every single time
someone—another mom—finds out I homeschool. Oh,
they say. They are afraid, angry, disgusted, baffled and ashamed all at once.
They look back at me, processing this new thing they’ve learned about me, and
they think: Oh, you’re one of those. Oh,
you think you’re so freakin’ good, don’t you?

Or, that you’re going to look at me and immediately discern
all my weaknesses as a homeschooling mom. You’re going to think: Is she smart enough? Organized enough?
Patient enough? Is she, well—enough, period?

And more: Is she
stupid or just completely deluded, that she thinks she can do this?

We mothers—all of us—suffer enough guilt. I refuse to pitch
a single stone into the mommy wars. I refuse.)

Simply, this—I am a writer. This is how I encounter the
world. This is how I encounter myself.
I have to write about it. And, in writing about it, in sharing my experiences,
what I’m trying to do is tease the threads of my life open. I want to fray the
ends, look at them. And—this is a writer’s greatest ambition, her fiercest
secret wish—I hope that my frayed ends have something to say to you.